Spirituality By Buddha Quotes & Sayings

Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. For self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on its parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul or Atman, which will live eternally. In his ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire, man needs these two things to console himself. Hence he clings to them deeply and fanatically. — Walpola Rahula

So also is the case if I don't care the one abusing me. He is the one going to be demeaned. — Gautama Buddha

Tune as the sitthar, neither high nor low, and we will dance away the hearts of men. — Gautama Buddha

Just one quality of the Buddha has to be remembered. He consists only of one quality: witnessing. This small word witnessing contains the whole of spirituality. Witness that you are not the body. Witness that you are not the mind. Witness that you are only a witness. As the witnessing deepens, you start becoming drunk with the divine. That is what is called ecstasy. — Rajneesh

You are as the yellow leaf.
The messengers of death are at hand.
You are to travel far away.
What will you take with you?
You are the lamp
To lighten the way.
Then hurry, hurry.
When your light shines
Without impurity or desire
You will come into the boundless country.
Your life is falling away.
Death is at hand.
Where will you rest on the way?
What have you taken with you?
You are the lamp
To lighten the way.
Then hurry, hurry.
When your light shines purely
You will not be born
And you will not die. — Gautama Buddha

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche has a remarkable ability to present the wisdom of the Buddha's teachings in a manner that is as fresh and accessible as it is profound. With Rebel Buddha, he goes straight to the core of the spiritual path, showing how the Buddha's liberating insights transcend race, religion, and culture. This book is sure to provoke, inspire, and move us one step closer to creating a thoroughly modern approach to spirituality. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

I did not tell Fat this, but technically he had become a Buddha. It did not seem to me like a good idea to let him know. After all, if you are a Buddha you should be able to figure it out for yourself. — Philip K. Dick

Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither the Buddha nor the Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness. (14) — Jean-Yves Leloup

For the Buddha of the Pali Canon, the goal is liberation: the cessation of suffering, the end of the endless hamster-wheel of dependent origination, of mental formations leading to desire leading to clinging leading to suffering and so on. Nibbana, or nirvana, was not originally conceived as some magical heavenly world, or even a permanent altered state of consciousness. It is usually described, in the early texts, negatively: as a candle being snuffed out. — Jay Michaelson

But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind. — Bodhidharma

Attachment is conditional, offers love only to certain people in certain ways; it is exclusive. Love, in the sense of metta, used by Buddha, is a universal, nondiscriminating feeling of caring and connectedness. — Jack Kornfield

I am moonlighting for the Buddha. — John Burdett

Who have not led the holy life
nor riches won while young,
they linger on as aged cranes
around a fished-out pond. — Gautama Buddha

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong. — John Lennon

The Buddha's principal message that day was that holding on to anything blocks wisdom. Any conclusion that we draw must be let go. The only way to fully understand the bodhichitta teachings, the only way to practice them fully, is to abide in the unconditional openness of the prajna, patiently cutting through all our tendencies to hang on. — Pema Chodron

Beware of 'god men' and 'god women'. Even people who have not been depressed for a day in their lives get sucked into the seductive delusion of spirituality. If you must seek, seek by yourself, sitting in an armchair at your desk after office hours. For while Buddha saw the light, we do not know how many of his disciples did. If you must get guidance from a living guru, take it and move on. Gurus are no more than the teachers we had at school. You may find them when you need to learn, but you have to outgrow them in order to grow. — Indu Muralidharan

Life can only take place in the present moment. If we lose the present moment, we lose life. — Gautama Buddha

Love one another." If we took those simple words to heart, we'd already be the Buddhas Jesus wanted us to be. — Kathleen Dowling Singh

At the same time, we may not as a culture be fond of old-fashioned supernaturalism, but we certainly like spirituality in whatever form we can get it. I suspect that if anyone other than Jesus (Krishna, say, or Buddha) were suddenly put forward as being due for a second coming, millions in our postsecular society would embrace such a thing uncritically, leaving Enlightenment rationalism huffing and puffing in the rear. We are a puzzled and confused generation, embracing any and every kind of nonrationalism that may offer us a spiritual shot in the arm while lapsing back into rationalism (in particular, the old modernist critiques) whenever we want to keep traditional or orthodox Christianity at bay. — N. T. Wright

To me, the view that Buddhist teachings are somehow religious, requiring some form of blind belief, and that you would have to relinquish other spiritual practices in order to pursue them fully, is neither accurate nor helpful. It's not accurate because the Buddha's central thesis was humanistic; he focused clearly on human suffering and the causes of that suffering. At the same time, viewing Buddhism as a religion is not helpful. People from all walks of life become interested in the vast array of Buddhist ethical, philosophical, and psychological teachings, and to declare that they cannot fully participate because they are also exploring another spirituality is severely confining and unnecessary. — Ethan Nichtern

Greater than all the joys
Of heaven and earth,
Greater still than dominion
Over all the worlds,
Is the joy of reaching the stream. — Gautama Buddha

The Great Ones, the sages of every age, tell me what to look for. They say that the answer lies not elsewhere but right where I am, here where I am both the center and the source of the universe. They say that, contrary to what I may think I am, what I really am is formless, boundless, timeless, and deathless; that I am utterly transparent, empty, not an object. They say that this clarity that lies at the very heart of my humanity is none other than the Self, God, Buddha, Tao, and the Beloved, and that to see and be this requires no change, no achievement, no struggle, for it is already what I am; in fact, I cannot not be it. They say that no one else can tell me what I am, that I must see for myself, and should I discover this and live consciously from this, all will be right, all will be true. — J. C. Amberchele

Seeking nothing, emulating nothing, breathing gently, he moved in an atmosphere of imperishable calm, impresihable light, inviolable peace. — Hermann Hesse

We work very hard to have what Buddha gave up to become enlightened. Does that mean we are benighted? — Rohan Perera

being attached to any one philosophy or religion
dwelling on moot differences and wanting to fit in
despite the path all are led Home in time
following an alternative pathway is certainly no crime
Krishna, Buddha, Allah or Zohar Kabbalah
devoted nonviolently, one is led to Nirvana
Hindu Sages, Zen Masters or Christian Mystics
many tongues, but identical truth spoken from their lips
mentioning Self or no-self or God is Father or Mother
according to their culture emphasizing one method or another
allness vs. nothingness, meditation vs. prayer
devotion in practice is all you should care
when Truth reveals itself you're beyond all conception
then not a single man-made word will hold any traction — Jarett Sabirsh

How deaf and stupid I have been, he thought, walking on quickly. When anyone reads anything which he wishes to study, he does not despise the letters and punctuation marks, and call them illusion, chance and worthless shells, but he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, who wished to read the book of the world and of my own nature, did presume to despise the letters and signs. I called the world of appearances, illusion. I called my eyes and tongue, chance. Now it is over; I have awakened. — Hermann Hesse

This may be why Einstein once said; "Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind." The fact is that we need the insights of the mystic every bit as much as we need the insights of the scientist. Mankind is diminished when either is missing. — Michael Crichton

The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path. — Gary Snyder

He wished he understood where they come from: all the terrorists, religious revolutionists
and hate-criminals. Did terrorizing entire communities of people help them sleep sound at
night? Did it make them happy? Or are they just in for the attention? Have they nothing to
lose? Or are they simply bored and spit balling issues that have always been there? Can all
global acts of violence and terror be summed up, as just a whole other level of a mixture of
bad parenting, psychological disorders and unattended anger management issues? Can they
be treated, medically or spiritually? Are we waiting for the birth of another great visionary
like Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ or Prophet Muhammad, who will 'make the world a better
place'? Or are we just too soaked in the idea that religion is a dying concept and spirituality
is overrated? Is it too late? Are we too far behind? He wanted to know. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

Maybe Christ was promoting Buddhism, maybe Buddha wasn't a prophet, maybe the Quran is older than its Prophet, and maybe we shouldn't spend another two thousand years living a lie, just because we fear the truth and the darkness it reveals within us. — Daniel Marques